To the Lighthouse: Effective Use of a Run-on Title

A run-on title is a phrase in the title space that starts a grammatical unit in the following poem text.

For example, my tanka prose below:

Sunflowers deepen into the soil 

striving to live.

more war news ...

weeding the flower bed

I don't feel deserving

of this small plot of earth,

an Eden of sorts 

Will these sunflowers flourish in this place I've claimed as my “own?”

Ribbons, 18:3, Fall 2022

The title, "Sunflowers deepen into the soil," is a run-on title, that segues into the brief opening prose:  "striving to live." When evaluated in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine as implied from L1 of the tanka, the opening prose can be used to describe both "sunflowers," intended to remind readers that they are the national flowers of Ukraine, in the title and the "I" in the tanka, one that conveys a feeling of guilt about the speaker's own relative good fortune when there's an ongoing war elsewhere.

And the concluding prose/question enhances this feeling of guilt by challenging the legitimacy/certainty of claiming for one's exclusive use any bit of this planet we share (in this place I've claimed as my “own?”) in a time of war with global consequences.

The use of a run-on title connects the fate of Ukrainians and the guilt of the speaker.

Another example, 

It is always three o'clock in the morning

day after day.

the ghostly past

lurking around the corner

of my mind ...

with a scalpel of words

I stab into its heart

However, my immigrant past is never ...dead -- gone and forgotten. It is not even past. 

Distressed and alone by the bedroom window, in the wake of a dream about a Taiwan blue magpie disappearing into the dark forest, I hear Time passing in the sound of snow.

Ribbons, 19:1, Winter 2023

contemporary haibun, 19, 2024

(annual anthology showcasing a state-of-the-art selection of haibun, tanka prose, and haiga from journals around the world)

The title, It is always three o'clock in the morning, can work as a run-on title because it, along with the opening prose, alludes to the following:

In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day.

-- F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Crack-Up"

The use of a run-on title makes the "dark night of the soul" allusion effective, adding emotional weight and psychological depth to the poem.

To conclude today's post, I would like to share with you the shortest haibun I've ever written.

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CCXVI: "Christ's thorns"

Smoky fireball

after smoky fireball ... the weight of this hushed silence.

a skeletal house

amid debris and pot shards

Christ's thorns

FYI: "According to a religious legend, the crown of thorns worn by Jesus Christ at the crucifixion was made from the stems of this plant, euphorbia milii , also known as Christ's thorn, a pretty succulent plant that can bloom almost year-round, even indoors."